


Vertigo

by ZarryFTZouis



Series: Chrissy's Oneshots [100]
Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF, Union J (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Plot Twists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 00:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3338240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZarryFTZouis/pseuds/ZarryFTZouis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What's a little vertigo?<br/>(Tell me what you wanna know.)"</p><p>- Vertigo by Marianas Trench</p><p>In which were Zayn leads an expedition of the regional Haunted Mansion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you might want to strangle me when you get to the end. Also, I dreamt this one like my two Phanfics.

_“Once you enter the house, you’ll never get out.”_

That’s what the sign outside the so-called ‘Haunted Mansion’ said and of course, Zayn didn’t buy it.

Everyone knows about this house, how there’s a spirit of a psychotic murderer is haunting the place and to prove everyone wrong, Zayn brought his friends here.

“This is reckless,” Liam comments, his eyes narrowing. “We don’t want to anger anyone.”

“You’re being ridiculous!” Louis laughs because he’s the reckless one. “C’mon, babe, have a say in this.”

“Do you want to die that much?” George doesn’t look all the convinced that the haunted stuff is just bogus as Zayn claims. “Spend the night here and walk out alive? Sure.”

“Soft-hearted git,” Niall’s Irish voice booms out. “Wait, where’s JJ and Jaymi?”

“Right behind you, you rude Irish prat,” Jaymi grunts. “We’re still missing two people!”

“Aw, you miss us,” Harry croons as he makes his entrance. “Josh was saying that he needs someone to film all this.”

“Which is how I sadly got drafted,” the oldest of the ensemble groans. “Why am I friends with you again, Styles?”

“Can we save the chitchat for later?” Josh groans. “It’s the middle of a bloody winter, a cold day at that.”

“Pushy,” Zayn rolls his eyes. “The purpose of this is that we prove everyone wrong, that this is just a creepy old mansion.”

“Turn the camera on,” Harry orders his best mate.

 

The group make it past the front gate without anyone shitting their pants. Actually, none of them does anything embarrassing, unless you count George shrieking like a banshee at a leaf tumbling about.

“So, the Haunted Mansion,” Zayn scoffs as Harry sidles closer to him. “Please tell me this killer ghost person is ready to kill us.”

“You don’t want to provoke the spirit!” Liam hisses out. “Okay, where are our flashlights?”

Everyone takes the said equipment out and checks the batteries.

“Okay, they’re all working fine, good,” Zayn sighs in relief. “So, which way?”

“Good question,” Louis squints at the darkness.

“Someone light in front of us!” JJ barks out his order.

The person furthest from Zayn — who happens to be Jaymi — directs his beam of life in front of them and all of them scream from the terror.

For a split second, they all see the glimpse of a bleeding guy, his eyes vacant shade of blue.

“Oh my God!” George somehow managed to hop onto Louis’ back. Zayn scoffs since the slightly curly haired lad is good five or six inches taller than his boyfriend.

“Jesus, people,” Nick sounds unimpressed. “That was probably someone trying to scare whichever idiot decides to stroll in.”

“Right,” Zayn tries to sound reassuring to himself more than anything. “So, let’s look at our options again?”

Jaymi points the flashlight in front of them and they see that there’s a gigantic staircase that has three possible routes. Underneath, there’s a corridor leading them to the rooms on the first floor.

“Alright, we’re going to split — where’s Josh?” Zayn frowns and points his flashlight everywhere. “Did he just chicken out?”

“I haven’t seen him since we screamed like little girls,” Niall shrugs. “Do you think the ghost got him?”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts, idiot,” Zayn rolls his eyes at his Irish best friend. “I was gonna say we split, but we only have one camera man so let’s go to the corridor together.”

 

The now-nine of them walk to the corridor, and there seems to be a message written for them.

 _“Wanna know what happened to your friend?”_ Harry reads out. “Is the ghost trying to communicate with us?”

“Nonsense,” Zayn presses his lips to his boyfriend’s cheek. “I told you, ghosts are bullshit.”

“Uh-huh,” Liam, who was the biggest believer of this so-called ghost from the start, glances at Zayn. “When we all die from this psycho ghost, my last thought will be ‘I hate you, Zayn Malik.’”

“That’s a tad bit rude,” Harry defends his boyfriend, which Zayn isn’t all that thankful about.

“I can defend myself — alright, where did JJ go?” Zayn’s growing more frustrated by the moment that his friends are bailing on this little trip. “Did you guys plan on getting out of this fucking house one by one?”

“I swear we didn’t,” Nick speaks for the first time, it seems to Zayn. “This just in, the ghost is angry that a bunch of teenagers are disrupting his resting spot.” He adds for the camera.

“Nick, did you film the sign of warning?” Liam sounds extra worried.

“Duh, so that we can prove everyone wrong and show this to them!” Nick rolls his eyes. “Honestly, I can’t see how you’re so tensed when you share bodily fluids with–”

“That’s enough,” Niall speaks up before Nick can say something cringe-worthy. “Don’t pick on me and Liam.”

“I can say a lot about you two,” Nick angles his camera towards Zayn and Harry. “There was that one time when I walked in on Harry–”

“Can we keep this tape PG?” Jaymi growls. “It’s bad enough that my boyfriend decided to bail out.”

“Or the killer ghost got him,” Liam inputs.

“Bollocks,” Zayn growls out. “Ghosts exist in books and movies, you idiot.”

“Will you _please_ stop calling me an idiot?” Liam sighs. “Alright, let’s go.”

They turn left for the first sight of a door and there’s a message written there.

 _“Another one lost, another prey for me,_ ” George reads out loud. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“What it literally says,” Louis suggests. “Or the last person who was here decided to use this awesomely blood-coloured paint.”

“Doesn’t it look too fresh to have been written ages ago?” Harry points out. “And it’s warm.” He extends an arm to rub at the ‘paint’.

The realisation dawns on the remaining eight of them.

“That’s… blood of the fallen?” Louis is brave — or stupid, those two things go together well — to voice out the thought. “The ghost has a sodding real form?”

“Alright, the jig is up,” Zayn tries not to sound too exasperated. “Who the hell is doing this prank?”

No one speaks up.

“Hey, Jaymi — the fuck?”

Now, Jaymi is out of the picture, leaving them to the number of seven.

“Whoever planned this, this is awesome so far,” Zayn comments, pushing through the creaky door. “Any more messages from our lovely host?”

“Yeah, here,” Niall points at the wall furthest from them. _“‘You ten were stupid enough to bring that large number of people here to start with.’”_

“Okay, this mastermind is incredibly rude,” Zayn huffs out a breath. “Just look for stuff that can let us identify this place.”

 

The seven of them search the room until Zayn hears a screech.

“Who was that?” He turns around instinctively, shining his flashlight at whoever was nearby, which happens to be George.

“Not me,” Niall reports. “Wait, let’s do a head count.”

“Louis?” George sounds fearful. “Where’d he go?”

“A new message!” Liam sounds super-worried now. _“‘We’ve got some disbelievers, I see. I’ll just pluck you off one by one… see you all soon.’”_

 

Seeing it was fruitless, the remaining six go to another room. There are cobwebs everywhere, making it hard for them to see anything through those.

“Something tells me no one’s been here for a long while,” Niall comments. “Alri’, what can happen to us? Liam?”

Zayn looks behind him, knowing that Liam was the last person to leave the first room and of course the bulky lad isn’t there.

“This is getting out of control,” Nick says to the camera, for once filming himself. “My hair is perfect so that’s one less thing to worry about than my imminent death.”

“Haha,” Zayn laughs humourlessly. “Let’s just search — great, another message.”

 _“‘I feel bad about this one, since he knew I existed from the start,’”_ Harry reads out. “Wow, this ghost person is playing games with us, isn’t he?”

“Hush and search harder,” Zayn hisses at his boyfriend, feeling guilty simultaneously. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“It’s alright, we’re sort of under pressure,” Harry pecks Zayn’s lips lovingly. “Let’s find this bloody ghost and get the fuck out of here.”

 

They find nothing in the second room and they try the third one, which happens to be the last on one the first floor.

“If we have a pattern, we should — yup, where the hell did Niall go?” Zayn sighs at the loss of yet another member.

“It’s the ghost,” Nick sounds scared and being the oldest of the group, Nick always sounds confident. “Fuck, you brought us to a slaughterhouse.”

“I think Louis’ dramatic flairs rubbed off of you somehow,” Zayn rolls his eyes. “Maybe all five of them decided to leave us and prank us.”

“The message tells us otherwise,” George frowns into his words. “‘ _Fools, you think this is just a prank by your friend? Now there’s less people left for me to pluck off._ ’”

 

Wordlessly, the remaining four walk upstairs, the unspoken _‘what’s happening to us?’_ loud in the air.

“Three paths, three doors,” Zayn comments at the split staircases. “Follow me.”

 

They walk into the door to the far left, and closes the door behind them.

“Look at this!” Harry beams, and it’s not just the flashlight. “Look at the photo I’ve found!”

In the wooden frame is a young bloke, with dark bronze hair and piercing blue eyes. He looks normal, so unlike the secretive serial psychopath he’s known as.

“Interesting–” Zayn wants to say more but that’s when they all hear the sound of something heavy dropping. “Bloody hell, Nick?”

“He’s gone,” George blinks. “God, they’re all gone because of your impudence!”

“Let’s go to the middle one…” Zayn leads his much smaller group. “Oh gosh, the message. ‘Don’t be stupid, all of you will die tonight.’”

Zayn, Harry and George walk to the staircase that connects to the path to the middle room and Harry pushes the door open. There’s nothing there other than the massive bed, nightstand, and the closet.

“Looks like there’s nothing here,” Zayn shrugs. “George — George?”

“‘One more room left,’” Harry read the message that’s written on the wall across from them.

Zayn leads the confused remaining Harry to the final room of the mansion.

“Zayn, the ghost won. Everyone died because you thought it was such a great idea to bring us to the Haunted Mansion,” Harry tells Zayn. “So let’s leave before anything happens to _us_.”

“You’re so naïve,” Zayn laughs heartlessly, a chilling sound. “Don’t you get it yet?”

“Zayn?” Harry sounds scared and worried at the same time. “Are you okay?”

 _“‘Once you enter the house, you’ll never get out._ ’”

Zayn makes sure that the last thing Harry sees is his true form of a blue-eyed ‘human’ with sharp teeth.


End file.
